Keeping Us Safe...Or....Bringing the Fight

Indirect fire is fire delivered on a target that is not itself used as the point of aim for the weapon.  Usually mortars, but sometimes rockets or other stuff.  Balad's nickname is Mortar-rita-ville, a play on the 1977 Jimmy Buffet song "Margaritaville" due to the seemingly over abundance of indirect fire attacks on the base.

However, that isn't to say we don't fight back.  Enter the MK15 Phalanx Close In Weapons System.

The Phalanx is 4.7m tall and sports a 20mm M61 Vulcan Gatling autocannon that fires tungsten or depleted uranium rounds at 4500 rounds a minute, or 75 rounds a second.  It is radar guided and completely automatic.  When it senses an incoming round that meets its predetermined guidelines, it looses a fury of rounds that destroy anything in its path.  Hearing these things go off in the middle of the night is an amazing thing and I'm glad I'm not on the receiving end.

The first video is of the Phalanx right across from the PX on JBB, the second, somewhere on JBB and the third, Basra.  Good stuff.  Not my videos, but ones I found on youtube.com.  Make sure your speakers are on.  You really don't want to miss the sound.  The white flashes at the end of the videos are the incoming ordinance exploding when the depleted uranium slug hits them.